Collins History

The towns and villages of the county are Cynthiana, Broadwell, Claysville, Colemansville, Havelandville, and Leesburg. CYNTHIANA, the county seat, and the chief town is situated on the right bank of the south fork of Licking, thirty-seven miles from Frankfort. It contains the usual county buildings, three churches (Methodist, Presbyterian and -----), five physicians, ten lawyers, thirteen stores, six groceries, two taverns, one academy, two common schools, one drug store, one auction store, one rope walk and bagging factory, one wool factory, on job printing office, two tanneries, one masonic lodge, 30 mechanics’ shops, market house, &c., Population about 1,000. Incorporated in 1802, and named after Cynthia and Anna, two daughters of Mr. Robert Harrison, the original proprietor. Claysville is situated at the mouth of Beaver creek, on Main Licking--contains a Republican church, two taverns, on physician, three stores, one merchant mill, three tobacco factories, one woolen factory and fulling mill, two warehouses, and about fifty inhabitants. Formerly called Marysville, but changed in 1821 to its present name, in honor of Henry Clay. Colemansville is thirteen miles north-west of Cynthiana--contains four stores and groceries, one church, one tavern, four physicians, eight mechanics’ shops, and about one hundred inhabitants. Incorporated in 1831, and called after Robert Coleman, the original proprietor. Havelandville is a small manufacturing town, owned by a gentleman named Haveland, containing a cotton mill, and a large number of small residences. Leesburg is situated ten miles west of Cynthiana, and contains three churches (Episcopal, Reformed, and Republican), five stores and groceries, one tavern, one wool factor, seven mechanic’s shops, and one bagging factory and rope walk. SOURCE: Collins, Lewis, History of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.: Henry Clay Press, 1968, pp. 340-344 (A reprint of the 1847 'History of Kentucky' by Lewis Collins)

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The Bones of My Bones

The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before. "It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before."by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943.

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